By Busari Kabirat
Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, who is the president of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has made it known that the lowest-paid worker in the world are Nigerian university lecturers and professors.
The ASUU President revealed this in a recent interview stating how the lecturers has been underpaid coupled with the kind of strainous work they do and how they have affected and built so many VIPs in life.
When asked, he revealed that lecturers has been earning same salary over years until the implementation of new minimum wage.
Prof. Osodeke explained that, since 2009, salaries of Nigerian lecturers have remained the same apart from the additional N40,000 consequential adjustment based on the previous minimum wage.
“I don’t know of any country in Africa, be it South, North, Central and even West, where university lecturers earn as low as Nigerian counterparts.
“No lecturer in some of those African countries earns less than $2,000 (about N3.3 million) per month and those in professorship cadre earn up to $10,000 (N16.5 million) per month.
“But here in Nigeria, a professor is earning $300 (N495,000) per month which is less than half a million naira.
“Look at the wide gap and that is why you can’t see any foreign lecturers in Nigerian universities because our universities are not attractive to them.
We’re the ones rushing to their countries and that is part of why our universities are ranked very low on global scale.
“So, we are the lowest paid lecturers as far as I know, in the whole world and those in government do not see this narrative as an issue that needs to be addressed.
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“And the reason is simply because their children and family members are not in Nigeria. They don’t attend Nigerian public schools. That is the situation we find ourselves in.”
My salary is just N420,000 (about $255) per month despite being a professor for 15 years, even my seniors who have been professors for up to 20 years earn the same amount as him.
“It is only the vice chancellors for example, by virtue of their offices, who earn something higher only when they are in that office as their salaries will come back to the normal amount after leaving.
“Whereas a special assistant to the Speaker of the House, for example, earns more than N1 million ($606) per month, which is more than double of the salaries of the highest-paid professor in the country.
“After all, a senator confessed recently to be earning up to N14 million per month in this same country where the government is claiming there is no money and that the N14 million was not even enough for him.
“N14 million is about three years’ salaries of a highest paid professor.”
